Possible problem with splits

[Donald Allen]

On Jan 25, 2008 10:15 AM, Mike or Penny Novack
<stepbystepfarm at mtdata.com> wrote:
>
> >
> >I completely disagree with what (I think) you asking for. As it is
> >now, there is a clean separation between the roles of the
> >per-transaction transaction description and the per-split memo field.
> >Each serves a well-defined purpose that does not change with the
> >context. What you appear to be asking for is that the transaction
> >description take on the value of the memo field, depending on the
> >account you view the transaction from and how you view the transaction
> >(expanded or unexpanded)? For me, this is confusing behavior that
> >would subtract significantly from the cleanliness and consistency of
> >the user interface. If you want to see the memo fields, either default
> >to auto-split mode and click the transaction (from any account that's
> >involved), or select the transaction and click the split button.
> >
> >
> >
> NO --- there is nothing wrong with being in disagreement but we should
> at least be clear about what we are disagreeing about.

I agree :-)

I am talking
> about the DESCRIPTION field which shows up in the non-expanded view
> (forget about the fact that I initially called that "memo").

First thing we need to do is make sure we're agreeing on terminology,
so we're not talking past each other. In my message, I referred to the
'transaction description', which is per-transaction. I think that's
what you mean by DESCRIPTION above.

 Nor am I
> talking about the (common) situation where in a split transaction there
> is nothing filled into the individual description fields (in each line).

I referred to those as per-split memo fields.

> The current behavior is fine in that case. Nothing filled in for a split
> line, display the "master" description just like now. NO CHANGE.

Yep, understood.

>
> What I am talking about is what would be normal for any business or
> other organization where all transactions would be by check (but not via
> invoices being paid) and what happens when a bank deposit is made. Are
> you suggesting.........
> 1) There be no USEFUL information in the description field of say any
> (unexpanded) transaction in an income account? The fact that the check
> was deposited is scarcely a useful description (you KNOW it was
> deposited if there is an income item booked).
> 2) That to see the information recorded in the description you need to
> expand the split (in the income account) and then try to find the right
> line among the many? Say the business deposits once daily and would have
> 50 checks on that deposit slip.

Well, I wouldn't put it quite as negatively as you did above, but that
is exactly what I'm saying. Said another way, I think the current
behavior is correct, for the (UI) reasons I described in my message.

>
> I am not suggesting that this is a problem for our organization, but we
> operate in the UNREALISTIC environment of only a hundred or so
> transactions per year, rarely have more than a couple checks being
> deposited per month. That's why it took so long for me to see this. I am
> discussing the readiness of GnuCash for the real world of small business
> needs, realistic volumes, etc.
>
> Are you trying to tell me (when you say that the suggested change would
> affect how you use GnuCash

Well, I didn't quite say that. I was simply critiquing your suggestion
from the viewpoint of a long-time software systems
designer/implementer/user who has strong opinions about user-interface
simplicity and consistency.


) that you fill information into the
> description fields of the individual lines because you thought that
> information would be useful (when viewing the transaction in the that
> account) but didn't want to see that information there?

No. I am saying that the per-transaction description field is one
thing, has one role, and the per-split memo fields have another role.
No matter which account I view a transaction from, I expect to see the
same content in the per-transaction description field; it's a summary
of what the transaction is about. If I want to see the memos on the
individual splits, I'm happy to expand the transaction. You are
raising a valid point that you sometimes have a ton of splits, so
there's a needle-in-a-haystack problem here, that could easily be
solved by sorting the splits so that the split for the account from
which you are viewing the transaction always bubbles to the top.

 If you thought
> that what I was suggesting would make any change if there was no
> (individual) description entered then you misunderstood.

No, no misunderstanding.

Gnu cash
> already extracts (and displays) the amount from the correct line --
> presumably not hard to have it also display the specific description IF
> there was one entered (if not spaces).

The credit/debit/balance columns are *always* for the account whose
register you are looking at. What you are proposing is a conditional
overloading of the transaction description field, where sometimes it
contains the transaction description and sometimes it contains the
contents of a memo field. It's this that I object to, on
user-interface grounds.

/Don

>